http://www.icine.org The best site on the internet Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:16:34 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The Slayer’s Journey: Buffy as Monomythic Hero By Mara Introduction Joseph Campbell’s seminal 1949 work on mythic structure, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, postulated that there was only one myth in the world (the “monomyth”) which was told and retold with endless variations by every culture on earth. Heavily influenced ... http://www.icine.org/2008/04/19/the-slayer%e2%80%99s-journey-buffy-as-monomythic-hero/ SPOILERS ALERT 3:10 to Yuma (Mangold, 2007) could have been great. It could have been about a perverse desire of the Good Man to be the criminal he sought to bring justice to, the man who could take what he could and feel free of judgment or ties to a simple ... http://www.icine.org/2007/09/29/310-to-yuma-or-the-forged-good-man/ Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others; von Donnersmarck, 2006) Germany This German film won the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Picture the year it released (2006). It came out of nowhere and beat out the front-runner Pan's Labyrinth for the prize. It shocked me at the time, but having ... http://www.icine.org/2007/08/30/the-lives-of-others-or-lenin-listens-to-beethoven/ This wasn’t supposed to happen. My first front page review here at Icine, something I’d slightly anticipated, thinking it’d begin with Fleck’s ‘Half Nelson’, or with Lynch’s sweet and simple ‘The Straight Story.' Now here I am reviewing a film that wasn’t even on my radar before last night, only ... http://www.icine.org/2007/08/28/ordinary-people-in-an-extraordinary-film/ LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- The summer movie season appears to have climbed the $4 billion box-office mountain a few days earlier than expected, reaching that milestone for the first time ever. Preliminary weekend figures show that the industry narrowly crossed the $4 billion threshold over the weekend, according to box-office tracker ... http://www.icine.org/2007/08/27/summer-box-office-caps-4-billion-for-the-first-time-ever/ Director SPIKE LEE has vowed to continue highlighting the plight of Hurricane Katrina victims with a follow-up documentary about the 2005 disaster. The moviemaker's original offering, When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, attracted huge critical acclaim for its frank look at the disaster and its aftermath. It ... http://www.icine.org/2007/06/06/spike-lee-plans-a-follow-up-to-hurricane-katrina-documentary/ Fans trumpeting the cause of CBS' canceled drama "Jericho" have caught the network's ear. CBS, deluged with calls, messages and shipments of nuts signifying viewer displeasure, is reconsidering its decision, a source close to the production said Tuesday. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to ... http://www.icine.org/2007/06/06/fans-make-cbs-reconsider-jericho-axing/ Kowalski is delivering the star of the movie, the white 1970 Dodge Challenger, from Colorado to San Francisco. Pumped up on speed (the drug, not velocity), he decides to drive it as fast as he can. Kowalski is the hero with a mysterious past that is slowly revealed in flashbacks ... http://www.icine.org/2007/04/27/vanishing-point-1971/ Like any Bond film, Casino Royale is given context not only by the period in which it was made, but by the films that directly preceded it. The Brosnan films to which Casino Royale is the heir slowly disintegrated from enjoyable camp to not-so-enjoyable schlock, the nadir of which may ... http://www.icine.org/2007/04/15/casino-royale-martin-campbell-2006/ Grindhouse (Rodriguez & Tarantino, 2007) Watching Grindhouse, it was clear to me who was the one with the big ego: his name wasn't Robert Rodriguez. While Rodriguez settled for a blast-from-the-past film-to-film transfer, Tarantino made a Tarantino film - probably his most peculiar one yet, and one that, if anything, ... http://www.icine.org/2007/04/07/grindhouse-not-so-cheap-thrills-spoilers/ Fortunately, the title of this review isn't a complete spoiler for Hilary Swank's latest movie, The Reaping. The plot is, in a general sense, a carbon copy of the Hammer Films classic, The Wicker Man (1973). But not as unintentionally hilarious. Rest assured the film has a surprise twist-and-shout ending. ... http://www.icine.org/2007/04/05/the-wicker-swank/ Fires on the Plain (Nobi) is one of the most powerful Anti-War movies I have ever seen. Which is surprising because it’s not about the war itself, as the soldiers hardly do any battle in the film. Taking place in the Philippines near the end of WWII, it is ... http://www.icine.org/2007/03/17/fires-on-the-plain-1959-%e2%80%93-kon-ichikawa/ Grizzly: So, Aurens, I’m gonna cut straight to the chase and ask you; what’s your prediction for Best Picture and why? Aurens: At this point, I think I should just spin the bottle and kiss whatever film it points to. WHO THE HELL KNOWS? I used to think Babel got it ... http://www.icine.org/2007/02/25/thoughts-on-oscars-final-predictions/ Oscar snubs are more often than not of the horrible kind - great works overlooked for more middling affairs seems like the norm. However, we often forget that Oscars also makes some smart decisions (we’ll talk as though it is of one mind, even when it really is just a ... http://www.icine.org/2007/02/25/oscar-2007-notes-on-best-picture-race/ The original Saw seems to have ushered in a new era for horror films. Acting and story has been cast aside for gore and grisly deaths. These kinds of films are certainly not new on the scene, but until recently have had more of a cult following. ... http://www.icine.org/2007/02/22/saw-ii-iii-i-wish-i-hadn%e2%80%99t/ *Contains major spoilers. Only read if you've seen it. What is the imagination? It is a voice in the loneliness of the night, the wind creaking the walls of your room, the things out of the shadows. It is a call to adventure. For what purpose do we use the imagination? We ... http://www.icine.org/2007/02/03/pans-labyrinth-guillermo-del-toro-2006/ Here's Andy Garcia's cue to re-assume the mantle of Mr. Plot in writer/director Joe Carnahan's new post-Tarantino mockup, Smokin' Aces: "Make this all make sense." Existential enough for you? After having delivered a lengthy expository monologue at the film's outset, Garcia squares his shoulders in the ferocity of ... http://www.icine.org/2007/01/29/no-smokin-please/ Danny Boyle's Shallow Grave deftly explores the most unstable of interpersonal relationships: the triangle. Add a corpse in a locked room and a briefcase full of money, and Boyle's particular brand of black British humor, and you have a tense, effective thriller that exploits the "classic" thriller themes, while putting ... http://www.icine.org/2007/01/26/shallow-grave-danny-boyle-1994/ Get it here. http://www.icine.org/2007/01/22/awards-season-oscarsicineorg/ Pan's Labyrinth (del Toro, 2006) Spain You know there's something wrong with the world when a child's paradise is the dark and sinister underworld. In this horrifying fairytale from the Spanish director, del Toro (who seems to be following Peter Jackson's career path), a little girl - Ofelia, played with heartbreaking ... http://www.icine.org/2006/12/31/pans-labyrinth-one-nightmare-of-a-dream/